Chuck's Choices for the weekend of August 9, 2013

As always, the choices are purely my personal opinion. Take with a grain (or a shaker) of salt.

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New this week:

The Chapel Venue presents Ebb and Flow: An Acoustic Evening with singer Dionna Raedeke and guitarist Mike Krysl on Friday, August 9, at 8 PM.  The performance takes place at The Chapel, 6238 Alexander Drive, at Skinker and Wydown. For more information: ebbandflow.brownpapertickets.com.

My take: As I noted in my blog post earlier this week Ms. Raedeke, a relative newcomer to the local cabaret scene, has garnered raves for her singing and musical taste from the likes of Rick Jensen and Jason Graae. Mr. Krysl, meanwhile, has often impressed me with both the ingenuity and virtuosity of his inventive and original takes on rock and pop standards.  And The Chapel is a non-profit venue that provides its space for free.  What's not to like?

Photo: John Lamb

The Theatre Lab presents Cormac McCarthy's The Sunset Limited August 9-17. “The play involves only two nameless characters, designated "White" and "Black", their respective skin colors. Offstage, just before the play begins, Black saves White from throwing himself in front of a train. The title, The Sunset Limited, is derived from the name of a passenger train that travels from New Orleans to Los Angeles. All of the action takes place in Black's sparse apartment, where the characters go (at the behest of Black) after their encounter on the platform. Black is an ex-convict and an evangelical Christian. White is an atheist and a professor. They debate the meaning of human suffering, the existence of God, and the propriety of White's attempted suicide.”  Performances take place at the Gaslight Theater on North Boyle in the Central West End. For more information: (314) 599-3309

My take: McCarthy's work is always worth seeing and it's good to see another theatre group on the scene.

The Muny presents West Side Story at 8:15 PM nightly through Sunday, August 5 - 11 in the outdoor theatre in Forest Park. For more information, visit muny.org or call 314-361-1900.

My take: The term "classic" gets thrown around quite a lot in the entertainment biz, of course, and it usually winds up being a synonym for "old". In this case, however, it's fully justified. After all, the people who created West Side Story either already were or would soon become theatrical legends: music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim (his Broadway debut, in fact), book by Arthur Laurents (lifted from Shakespeare, who lifted it from a poem by Arthur Brooke), and direction and choreography by Jerome Robbins. West Side Story is one of the crowning achievements of American musical theatre, and that its moving, complex, and energetic score is one of Bernstein's best efforts in the genre.